NUM BER TH REE 


Missionary Episodes 
Issued as Occasion may Require by the 


American Baptist Foreign Mission Society 
Ford Building Boston, Massachusetts 


A Night in a Jungle Village 


T was my second night on a re- 
| cent tour towards the center of 

the Garo Hills of Assam. I 
had taken the wrong path a short 
distance and my coolies had also 
lost the trail and were delayed. 
God wanted me that night in Dil- 
magiri, a nearer village than the one 
we had planned to reach. It was a 
typical heathen village in the jungle. 
No Christian work had ever been 
done there, except through the occa- 
sional stop of an evangelist or the - 
very rare visit of a passing mission- 
ary. I did not know the place nor 
did I know that I had had dealings 
with any one there. So I was sur- 
prised to be greeted on arrival by 
a former patient, the head-man of 

[1] 


the village, who was also a govern- 
ment officer known as a luskar—a 
man in charge of a group of villages. 
It was nearing sunset as I arrived. 
The men of the village were erecting 
a house for the son of the luskar. 
Most of them were half drunk. I 
saw that there was no chance for a 
regular meeting there that night. 
I then learned that in that section 
of the hills they continue building 
day and night as long as the liquor 
lasts or until the house is finished. 
If the liquor is finished first, the 
work must stop until more rice-beer 
is provided. The people pointed out 
to me in the next village a house 
that required three days and nights 
continuous building and drinking. 
While awaiting the coming of my 
coolies I went into the house and 
joined the men in the work of build- 
ing. Their incredulity soon changed 
to admiration and I heard behind 
me the remark, ‘‘ Why, he does know 
how, doesn’t he? ” and again, “‘ Why, 
he is just like one of us!” Christ 
took his place among common men 
as one of us and sends us to live like 
[2] 


him. I was glad, however, when my 
coolies arrived, for my thumb was 
soon blistered tying the split bamboo. 

After dinner the luskar and one 
of his assistants came to pay their 
respects. We chatted a while and 
then the assistant wanted to ask 
questions. He said he could not 
understand how a soul could be re- 
born over and over again, sometimes 
in &@ man, again in a woman, or an 
animal or a worm for ages eternal. 
I explained to them the biology and 
the theology of the human life. 
Deeply impressed, they bade me a 
hearty good night, and I again went 
to the building. 

Three camp fires were blazing, 
while several scores of half-drunken 
men were working and chattering 
about the fires. At each fire in turn 
I sat and talked of the deep things 
of life until the drunken babble 
changed to thoughtful silence. 

One of the leading men of the 
village was constructing the wall 
and doorway of the inner private 
room of the house. A circle of men 
now grown quiet sat round the fire 

[3] 


with me. Suddenly we heard the 
squawking of a rooster in the dis- 
tance. Some one shouted not to bring 
it yet, but the priest evidently did 
not hear. Passing to the side of the 
fire opposite me, the priest brought 
the fowl to the leading builder, who 
with his large knife cut off the 
rooster’s head. The priest smeared 
the spurting blood upon the doorpost 
and on the cornerpost of the room, 
and then plucked a few feathers 
from the quivering body and stuck 
them on the blood. I asked the 
purpose of the ceremony and they 
told me that it was to protect the 
people who were to live in that room 
from the power of evil spirits. At 
that midnight hour I saw before me 
the Garo memorial of the Passover in 
Egypt 3,500 years ago. During all 
these centuries they have waited for 
some one to explain to them the true 
meaning of their own customs. 

At four in the morning I went again 
to the camp fires and once more was 
most cordially welcomed. I told 
them the story of Jesus, the all- 
sufficient sacrifice for sin and the 

4] 


preserver of life, the Man of Galilee 
whose beautiful life brought joy to 
men and whose death makes un- 
necessary the countless sacrifices of 
these friendly hill-men. For many 
centuries they have been offering 
human and animal sacrifice as vi- 
carious atonement for the sins of 
their loved ones. Garos quickly be- 
lieve that the sacrifice of God’s only 
Son is sufficient and they delight in 
such love revealed. 

After a hasty breakfast and dental 
operations for members of the luskar’s 
family, I rode out of that valley as 
the golden glow of the morning sun 
made radiant the eastern sky. A 
prayer surged through my heart that 
the Sun of Righteousness might arise 
and shine into that dark valley. 

Six months later the government 
started a school in that village; the 
teacher was one of our Christian 
youngmen. Again six months passed 
and the luskar and one of his men 
told me in my own home that they 
and all the men of the village had 
made up their minds to be Christians. 
I questioned the all. The man with 

[5] 


the luskar answered, ‘‘ Well, I do and 
there are a lot of others that do.” 

In a neighboring village seventeen 
were baptized before the end of the 
first year’s work of a Christian school 
teacher; in another, twenty-six; in 
another, eighteen during the second 
year. The government started a 
school in what was supposed to be 
the hardest and most conservative of 
all heathen Garo villages and where, 
it was feared, any teacher beginning 
Christian work would be murdered. 
The teacher was one of our Christian 
young men. Before the close of the 
first year twelve were baptized. ‘This 
indicates the splendid work being 
done in frontier heathen villages by 
some of our Garo young men but re- 
cently out of heathenism and on a sal- 
ary of only $4 a month, an excellent 
type of evangelistic educational work. 


Tura, Garo Hitts, G. G. Crozier, M.D. 
AssaM, INDIA. 


OR additional literature or other infor- 
mation regarding the work of the Ameri- 
can Baptist Foreign Mission Society, write 
to any of the following: 
1. The nearest District Secretary. 
2. Department of Missionary Education, 23 East 
26th Street, New York City. 
3. Literature Department, Box 41, Boston, Mass. 


23 2d Ed.-15M-8-29-1916 [6] 


